Chapter four

Back in the old days, when just stepping out of her front door had involved gearing up for a fight, Emma had been used to the uncomfortable energy radiating between her and the mayor. Whenever she saw her coming, she would automatically straighten her spine and force herself to stop smiling. All their conversations were battles, even if they didn't appear that way from the outside, and she had to be prepared to fight at all times.

It had been exhausting. The first time she and Regina had spoken civilly to one another, she'd gone home with very faint tears in her eyes at the sheer relief of knowing that things were starting to get a bit simpler.

So when they reunited with Henry the following morning and ventured into Chicago together, Regina's suddenly cold behaviour nearly made her cry for a different reason.

She wasn't being unfriendly, exactly - they'd spoken plenty as they'd navigated around one another's bathroom schedules and then headed into the city. But Regina looked flushed and tense, and when Emma tried to joke or ask her a question, she didn't reply with the same readiness that she had 12 hours earlier. When they'd stumbled out of the bar together the night before, Regina had even jokingly linked her arm in Emma's and made a comment about what the other residents of Storybrooke would think if they could see them. Emma had blushed and laughed and been grateful it was dark out.

She decided maybe that was the issue - Regina had gotten too tipsy and too friendly the night before, and now she was stepping back again so Emma didn't get any ideas about them being real friends. The thought sent a sharp stabbing pain directly through her gut.

"That place is cool," she said, pointing at a random building that didn't look very special at all. She was desperate, though, and she knew Regina would appreciate the opportunity to call her an imbecile for finding a building interesting just because it had windows and running water. But instead Regina just frowned, then smiled awkwardly without response. Emma deflated and took a step back.

"Are you two fighting again?"

Emma turned with a jolt and found Henry watching her anxiously. "No. Why?"

"Something feels off."

"Does it? I didn't notice," Emma lied desperately. It was obvious Henry didn't believe her, but to her immense relief, he didn't comment.

But the fact that she wasn't just imagining it sat in Emma's stomach for the next few hours, and as soon as she found herself alone with Regina again, she couldn't help but sidle up to her with an awkward smile on her face. "Hey."

Henry had just vanished into a comic book store, and Regina suddenly looked like she was considering darting after him.

"Hi."

An excruciating silence followed. Regina couldn't bear to make eye contact - not when she could still remember how warm she'd been when she'd woken up practically dry-humping Emma's leg - and quickly looked at the ground. Emma watched her tucking her hair behind her ear with longing.

"I just wanted to check you're okay."

Regina glanced up. "Me?"

"Yeah. You seem quiet. I need to make sure I didn't do something really stupid while drunk last night."

Except she hadn't been that drunk in the first place - she just wanted to offer Regina an excuse in case she wanted to grab hold of it.

She was surprised when Regina's cheeks burned crimson. She looked away again. "No. You didn't."

"You're sure?"

"I'm positive. I'm just... tired," she finished lamely.

When she glanced back up, she nearly cried at the expression on Emma's face. She was watching her worriedly, her gaze focused on the bags under her eyes and the strange new colour in her cheeks. It was an expression so soft and caring that Regina wanted to curl up under it like it was a blanket.

"Do you get nightmares often?"

Regina jumped. "Sorry?"

"You just... Last night, you woke up because you had one." Emma paused, frowning. "Right?"

In all the drama and humiliation of the night before, Regina had completely forgotten about the lie she'd told. The sympathy on Emma's face suddenly made her feel dirty all over.

She opened her mouth to respond, but her throat felt tight and she couldn't bring herself to lie again. Instead, she shrugged. "I guess. I think I'm going to go check on Henry."

And just like that, she was gone. Emma blinked, looking around at the people streaming past her in case one of them was able to offer a little more insight into what was spinning Regina round in a constant set of 180s. But they all brushed past without so much as a glance in her direction, and as she blinked at them, Regina vanished into the store.

With a sigh, Emma walked over to the nearest bench. She sat down on it alone and waited there quietly, hoping that her strange, fragmented family was still planning to come and find her again.

As soon as they set off again, Henry noticed the new walking arrangement. Emma was trailing behind, looking interestedly round at her surroundings with an expression that suggested she wanted to talk about what she was seeing. But because Regina and Henry were a few steps ahead of her, not quite walking arm-in-arm but definitely moving with a kind of solidarity that told Emma she wasn't invited, she kept her mouth shut. Regina didn't seem to be bothered by this, but Henry felt a bit sticky.

After a few blocks, he fell back slightly. As soon as Regina noticed he wasn't with her anymore, she strode ahead, leaving rather too much space between them.

"Hey," Emma said, beaming at him as he fell into step beside her. "Where have you been?"

"Up front, babysitting Mom," Henry replied. At once, Emma's face collapsed. "What's going on?"

"With what?"

"With you two. She's being all moody."

"How is that any different to normal?" Emma asked. Her joke was slightly flatter than it usually would have been, though. Henry saw a faint frown line between her eyebrows.

"Come on," he persisted. "Did something happen?"

Emma glanced over at him, then sighed. Once she was certain Regina was far enough ahead of them to not hear a word over the dull roar of the surrounding crowd, she said tentatively, "I'm not sure."

"How can you not be sure?"

"Well, I'm pretty used to pissing Regina off without meaning to," she joked halfheartedly. Her gaze was on the back of Regina's head, looking so longingly at the sway of her glossy hair that Henry knew she was seconds away from whining out loud.

"Have you asked?"

"Sure. She didn't really give me an answer, though." Emma suddenly hesitated. "Has she said anything to you?"

"Nothing. She's just been kind of sketchy all day."

Emma nodded reluctantly. "I'm pretty sure I did something to upset her, but I haven't been able to work out what it was yet. Any guesses?"

But Henry, for once, had no idea. He knew they'd gone out together the night before, but since Regina didn't seem the type to drunkenly kiss someone and then regret it the next morning, he had to assume it wasn't that. If Emma had said something stupid or offensive, she'd probably remember it, so it wasn't that either. The bottom line was something strange was spinning around inside Regina's brain, and neither of them had any access to that particular locked room.

He looked ahead at his mother again. She was walking with her shoulders back and her head high, deliberately not looking at the couple who were straggling behind her.

As soon as Emma disappeared to buy them some pizza slices - which happened roughly every 15 minutes once she'd remembered just how good Chicago pies were - he rounded on Regina. She saw his dark expression and folded arms, and her eyebrows shot up.

"What?"

"What happened last night?" he asked flatly. It didn't escape him that Regina immediately jumped and blushed.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're acting weird. Emma thinks you're mad at her."

The way Regina's haughty expression crumbled made his chest grow warm. "She does?"

"Yeah. She thinks she's done something to upset you but doesn't know what it is."

Regina bit her lip. "Did she ask you to speak to me?"

"Come on, Mom. As if Emma would ever do that."

Nodding, Regina hesitated for a few moments. "I'm not mad at her."

"You're not?"

"No. I'm just tired."

Henry snorted. "No, you're not. When you're tired you get crabby, not quiet."

"I beg your pardon?" Regina asked, trying to use the dangerous voice that had always worked so well during Henry's childhood. That day, though, he just grinned and nudged her.

"You know it's true," he said, then returned to the topic in hand. "She's upset, Mom. If she did something then that's fine - I'm sure no one would be surprised - but you should at least talk to her about it. The trip was going so well until now."

Regina completely missed the slightly prying tone to his statement, because Emma had reappeared and was walking toward them with three slices of pizza stacked up in one hand and a bottle of Snapple in the other. She was wearing the deeply excited expression that only came from the arrival of good, hot food. As soon as Regina saw her, something inside her chest melted into a warm puddle that ached and clung to the bottom of her ribcage. She tried not to smile, but she failed.

Henry saw it all, of course. He watched as Emma handed over the food to Regina, and how their fingers made contact for a second while each of them decided who should be the one to pull away.

The guilt had stewed in Regina all day. She'd wanted to grab Emma and speak to her privately, but in the heavy throng of central Chicago, the opportunity had never arisen. It was only when they got back to their shared hotel room and Emma had wordlessly headed for the bathroom that Regina heard herself blurting out, "I'm not mad at you."

Emma turned around instantly, her eyebrows scrunched together. "You're not?"

"No. Not at all," Regina replied, plonking herself down on the bed with a sigh. Henry was down the hall in his own room, and although they probably could have used the opportunity to request a third room once more, either no one had thought of it or no one had been willing to say it.

Emma nodded, but it was obvious she didn't believe her. "Okay."

"I'm serious. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

"Right. Then... what's been bothering you?"

Regina had her answer - a not-quite lie - all ready. "Nothing really. I've just been feeling a little off. You know what those days are like."

With a tentative smile, Emma replied, "Yeah, I guess. Maybe you're homesick."

"Maybe. Or seriously, I could just be tired. Either way, you didn't do anything wrong."

Emma narrowed her eyes, like she was trying to use her supposed superpower to check whether Regina was lying. When she seemingly came up empty, she nodded.

"Okay. If you're sure."

"I'm positive."

Finally, Emma smiled. Relief swept through Regina like a forest fire.

Then, just as Emma was turning back to the bathroom, a thought visibly struck her. She paused before looking back at Regina once more.

"It's actually sucks you slept so badly," she said, "because, for some reason, I slept really well."

Something cold and rock solid plummeted into the space between Regina's hip bones. "You did?"

"Yeah - like, crazily good. Until you woke me up with your nightmare, I was pretty much dead to the world." She paused, thinking of what she remembered from the night before - feeling safe and warm and slightly protected, dreaming of a misty kind of forest where she knew nothing bad would ever happen to her.

Regina smiled faintly. "Well, in that case, maybe we should share a room more often."

She was rewarded with a beaming grin that made Emma's entire face light up.

"I sure wouldn't be opposed," she said as she finally disappeared into the bathroom. As the door clicked shut, Regina collapsed back onto the bed with a groan, feeling a new kind of heat rising up from the base of her stomach and into her chest. It felt like heartburn, if heartburn was made of smoky vanilla clouds and sweet little pockets of stardust.

As Emma showered, she lay there basking in it. When the bathroom door opened and a wave of body wash and perfume crept out, she nearly sank into it and fell asleep.

Everyone was relieved that the mood had shifted at dinner. Both Regina and Emma were looser and more comfortable, which meant Henry was too. They sat in a nice restaurant and enjoyed pleasant food and even pleasanter conversation, not really noticing as the time passed. When Henry casually asked at 10pm if he could try some of their leftover wine, to everyone's surprise, Regina poured him half a glass and nudged it toward him, secretly delighted when he didn't wince as he slowly tasted it.

She herself felt a little drunk with happiness as they returned to their rooms. Eight years earlier, she'd been in cold, grey-tinted town waiting for something interesting to happen, and now she was staggering down a hotel hallway with her son and a woman she'd once hated but now adored just a tiny bit, feeling lighter than she probably deserved. She and Emma each kissed Henry on his wine-reddened cheeks and reminded him they needed to be up early the next morning to start their drive back to Maine, and then watched as he sauntered down the hall. He was so tall, Regina thought. So happy.

It was wonderful to see.

Emma struggled to get their door open with her clumsy hands, but then held it ajar so Regina could walk in ahead of her. As soon as they were inside, Regina noticed a difference in their behaviour from the night before.

"That was a lovely dinner," she said, far, far too loudly. "I really enjoyed it."

She thought Emma might mock her for her over-enthusiasm, but she was too busy struggling to unzip her boots. "It was. And Henry seemed to be having a good time, too."

Regina sighed happily and fell back onto the bed. On the other side of the room, Emma had freed herself from her shoes and was undoing her belt.

"It's a shame we have to leave tomorrow. I'd actually love to spend another day here."

"Me too. But I can only take so much time off before I need to get back to work. And the same goes for you, I imagine."

Emma looked up in faux surprise. "Wow - that makes a nice change from, 'And I guess the sheriff station will need you to stagger back in and break the copier at some point too'."

Regina rolled her eyes, but to her dismay, they immediately settled back on Emma. Her blonde curls were tumbling all over the place as she threw her belt into her bag, and then unzipped her jeans. She paused for a second, and Regina wondered if she was going to suddenly remember that she was in the same room as someone whom she'd never gotten undressed in front of before. But then, with a jolt of shock that made her stomach clench, Emma grabbed the bottom of her shirt, yanked it up, and was left standing in her bra and an open pair of jeans, her red panties peeking out from underneath.

Regina knew her cheeks had turned the exact same shade of crimson, but thankfully Emma wasn't paying attention. She threw her shirt in the direction of her luggage, then turned around to remove her bra. There was a split second where Regina found herself faced with twitching back muscles and the deep divet of a spine that she inexplicably wanted to run her tongue down the length of. Then Emma was wearing her baggy, washed-out pyjama shirt, and Regina was forced to look away before she could get caught staring.

Emma kept chatting happily as they both got ready for bed, seemingly not noticing that Regina had gone quiet once more. She slipped into bed first, her nighttime regime a lot less high-maintenance than the mayor's was, leaving Regina to remove her make-up with shaky hands and then return to the bedroom feeling far, far too exposed.

Emma was on her phone and didn't glance up when Regina crept over and slipped into bed beside her. Right away, she noticed the warmth radiating from Emma's side and the fact that her own sheets were crisp and icy cold.

She couldn't help but remember what it had been like waking up pressed into the full length of Emma's body the night before. Never in her life had she done that - normally she slept soundly on her back or occasionally on her left side, but never on her right. And yet, as soon as Emma and her furnace body had curled up beside her, her subconscious had decided to take a trip to the other side of the bed. Finding herself with a whole armful of warmth and comfort and sweet, soft curls in her arms had been the most magical wake-up call of her life.

She glanced over at Emma and wondered what would happen if she rolled toward her right then. For a second, she was tempted. But then nerves struck her down and she sighed, tugging the sheets up to her chin, and stared up at the ceiling as she waited for the lights to be turned off.

But Emma didn't appear ready to go to sleep just yet. She put her phone down, but turned to Regina with a grin. "Henry's enjoying himself, isn't he?"

Regina nodded, try not to look directly back at her. "He is. It's nice to see."

"Have you two travelled much before?"

At that, Regina had no choice but to look dully back at her. "At what point during my evil curse would we have found the time to hit the Bahamas?"

Emma blushed slightly, but still laughed. "Right. But you said you've shared hotel rooms before."

There was a long pause before Regina said, "Yes. Well. In the past."

"Where were you going?"

"There was... a time when I wanted to get us out of Storybrooke. We hit the road and stayed in motels as I tried to get us to another town."

Emma blinked. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't a good place for him, obviously. Think about it - he kept growing up, but everyone in his class stayed the same age. He was confused. He wasn't happy and it was a mess. Of course I wanted to get him out of there."

The scrunched-up look on Emma's face suggested that she'd wondered about all that in the past, but she'd never asked about it for fear of giving herself a migraine.

"So you left?"

"Tried to leave," Regina corrected. "But we never got anywhere. Any road we took always led us back to Storybrooke."

Silence fell in the half-lit room, and Regina waited for Emma to make an uncomfortable joke about reading the fine print of evil curses.

Instead, she said in a soft voice Regina had never heard before, "I'm glad you tried, though."

Regina finally rolled toward her. "Why?"

"Because it means you always put Henry above your curse, even if you didn't think about it."

She knew from Regina's expression that she was deciding whether to be offended or not. Eventually, she smiled back. "Like I had a choice. You know as well as I do that as soon as Henry's in your life, you can't say no to him."

Emma grinned at her. She had slid down into the bed and was bundled up with her covers pulled up to her chin. She looked much smaller than Regina had ever seen her - annoyingly, it only made her want to cuddle closer even more.

"You look like a baby all swaddled up like that," she said. The sentence didn't come out as disparagingly as she'd wanted - instead, she sounded slightly tender.

Emma pouted in response. "Hey, back off. I'm just getting comfy."

"Right," Regina said dryly. "And would you like a bedtime story as well?"

"Depends - will it be about you?"

"No, but it certainly won't be about you either."

Emma grinned again. "That sounds fine to me."

With a huff, Regina suddenly pushed herself upright and started rearranging her pillows. Neither of them knew exactly why she was doing it, but there was an air of trying not to get too comfortable hovering around her.

"Stop that," Emma grumbled, shuffling down further under her covers until just her eyes were poking out the top.

"Oh, sorry, dear," Regina drawled. "Disturbing you, am I?"

"Aren't you always?"

Without thinking, Regina laughed at her grumpiness and leaned forward, pressing a playful kiss against Emma's forehead. Any other night, in any other city, she knew both of them would have laughed it off and pretended nothing had happened at all. But in that moment, as Chicago streamed past and their trip back home stretched out ahead of them, they both froze. Regina looked down at Emma, who was suddenly no longer hidden beneath her blankets but was staring up at her with wide eyes that were almost daring her to go one step further, and hesitated. That same warmth from the night before was creeping up inside her.

She couldn't have said who was the first to lean forward. All she knew was that one second they were looking curiously at one another, their pupils wide in the dim light and their fingers caught around the edges of hotel sheets, and the next their lips were pressed together. As Regina leaned down, her hair dangled in her face, tickling Emma's forehead and cheeks and smelling of coconuts. Beneath her, Emma was snaking her arms up from under the blankets so she could wind them around Regina's neck and tug her down.

The full length of Regina's body landed on top of her like a silk cover, and when Emma felt her curls being tenderly pushed away from her face, she nearly cried. The sheets separated them, but she still felt Regina's knee land between her own and push down into the mattress for stability. When Emma closed her thighs around it and held it there, Regina moaned and kissed her harder, prying her lips open so she could use her tongue to make Emma whimper and whine. It swept through her mouth gracefully, just like Emma had always known it would, and when she tightened her grip on Regina's neck and yanked her closer, she was relieved when Regina settled into the shape of her like she was her shadow.

As her left hand continued toying with Emma's hair and teasing it away from her face, her right slid down, from her cheek to her throat to the faint line of her collar bone protruding from the top of the sheets. Every touch felt electric and dangerous, but Emma didn't feel embarrassed by how loudly she was gasping or how often her hips bucked up at the faintest contact. If anything, Regina was reacting even more violently than she was - she was quieter, sure, but no one could deny how tightly she was clinging on. Her pelvis ground forward like it was looking for something, and whenever it met Emma's hips, she sighed gratefully, as if she was wondering what the hell every other moment of her life had been for if not for kissing Emma exactly like this until the sun rose.